O.sbeclcia.] 
LII. MELASTOMACE.E. 
669 
together, sometimes very few, forming sessile terminal clusters, almost condensed 
into heads. Calyx-tube about 3 lines long or rather more ; lobes 4, not quite so 
long as the tube, broad or narrow, acute, ciliate, but without any terminal tuft of 
hairs, with 4 accessory ciliate scales inserted between and a little below them on 
the outside, and occasionally a few ciliate scales on the tube below the middle. 
Petals 4. Anthers produced into a slender beak. Capsule 4-celled. — Benth. FI. 
Hongk. 115, with the synonyms adduced; F. v. M. Fragm. iv. 160 ; O. angusti- 
folia, Don ; Wall. PI. As. Ear. iii. t. 251. 
Hab.: Rockingham Bay, Dallachy, and other localities in the tropics. 
The species extends over the Indian Archipelago and the eastern provinces of India to S. China 
and Formosa. — Benth. 
2. OTANTHERA, Blume. 
(Anthers with ear-like processes.) 
(Lachnopodium, Blume.) 
Calyx-tube ovoid ; lobes 5 or 6, deciduous, alternating with as many short 
bristly scales or appendages. Petals obovate. Stamens twice as many as petals, 
all equal and similar ; anthers opening in a single pore on the summit, the con- 
nective produced at the base into a short 2-lobed appendage turned up on the 
inner face. Ovary 5 or 6-celled, crowned with bristles. Fruiting-calyx truncate 
after the fall of the lobes ; capsule (in the Australian species) opening at the top 
in as many valves as there were cells to the ovary, in other species more pulpy 
and less regularly dehiscent. Seeds cochleate, small and very numerous. — 
Shrubs more or less strigose, with the habit of the smaller-flowered Melastomas. 
Leaves 5 or 7-nerved. Flowers in terminal trichotomous cymes or panicles. 
The genus consists of very few species, natives of the Indian Archipelago, one of which, the 
same as the Australian one, differs slightly from the others in the fruit drier and more cap- 
sular, and was therefore distinguished by Blume under the name of Lachnopodium. — Benth. 
1. O. bracteata (bracteate), Kortli. Verk. Xat. (resell. Bot. 285 t. 51 ; Benth. 
FI. Anstr. iii. 292. A shrub of several feet, the branches more or less covered 
with pale-coloured or rusty hairs or bristles. Leaves petiolate, ovate or ovate- 
elliptical, mostly 3 to 5in. long, membranous, rough with short strigose hairs. 
Flowers few, in short terminal trichotomous cymes, the peduncles and pedicels 
with a few small leaves at the base of the cyme, and a short, broad, concave, 
almost cordate bract at the base of each branch or pedicel. Calyx-tube about 2 
lines long, densely covered with small scales, divided each into 3 to 5 long erect 
cilia or bristles ; lobes 5 or 6, linear, scarcely so long as the tube, ciliate with a 
few long bristles, the intermediate bristly scales short and obtuse. Petals white 
or pink, 5 to 6 lines long, each with a bristle at the end. Ovary adnate to about 
half the calyx-tube, the convex summit very bristly. Fruit nearly globular, 
crowned by the scars of the calyx-lobes. Capsule apparently dry, the placentas 
projecting far into the cells. — Naud. in Ann. Sc. Nat. ser. 3 xiii. 354 ; Lachno- 
podium bracteatum, Blume, Mus. Bot. i. 56. 
Hab.: Dalrymple Creek, Rockingham Bay, Dallachy, and other tropical localities. 
Also in Sumatra. 
Korthals figures the calyx-lobes rather broad ; I find them narrow, as described by Blume, 
both in the Sumatran and the Australian specimens. Lachnopodium rubro-limbatum, Blume, 
Mus. Bot. i. 56, taken up from tbe Melastoma rubro-limbatum, a garden plant, figured in Link 
and Otto, Ic. PI. Sel. 89, t. 41, appears to be the same species. — Benth. 
3. MELASTOMA, Linn. 
(Berries stain the mouth black.) 
Calyx-tube campanulate or ovoid ; lobes or teeth 5 or rarely 6, deciduous, with 
or without small alternate accessory lobes or appendages. Petals obcordate or 
obovate. Stamens twice as many as petals ; anthers elongated, opening at the 
